


Sleeve

by midnight_marimba



Series: Heart to Heart [1]
Category: Dragon Quest XI
Genre: Act 1, Fluff, Gen, Sylvando being a bard, Sylvando being a mom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:46:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22056502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnight_marimba/pseuds/midnight_marimba
Summary: Sylvando joins the party.  Serena tries out a new costume and triggers his protective instincts.First in a series of one-shots involving Sylvando interacting with different members of the team.  Sweet, serious, and silly.
Relationships: Sena | Serena & Sylvia | Sylvando
Series: Heart to Heart [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1587526
Comments: 12
Kudos: 58





	Sleeve

**Author's Note:**

> Compatible with my other works (Diamond, Hero's Voice, Zwaardsrust) but 100% works standalone.

Sylvando smiled in satisfaction as he followed the little group away from the gates of Gallopolis. They were full of determination and pep, and, sure, they’d demonstrated that they could more or less take care of themselves, but they were still hardly more than children, the lot of them. He wouldn’t have been able to sleep ever again if he’d just let them go off to face down some terrible, world-threatening villain on their own.

Maybe the woman was an exception. Serena. She looked a bit older than the rest, and somewhere between their outing with the prince and their final departure from the city, she’d changed from her conservative dress into a flamboyant and revealing dancer’s costume, the sort that was traditional in a certain style of performance in Gallopolis. He studied her curiously as they walked, wondering if she was a fellow entertainer, though he certainly would have remembered her if she’d ever performed in the same city where he happened to be.

He developed doubts after only a few minutes. She didn’t move like an experienced dancer. He saw her turn her head, distracted by the flower on a cactus, then trip over an uneven spot in the sand. She didn’t quite fall, but she had to flail and catch herself with the butt of her spear, and it would have been a stretch to call it a graceful recovery.

One of the boys, Erik, dabbed at his face with the end of his sash. “I gotta say, Serena, you were on to something, picking up that lighter outfit. I’m boiling alive.”

“Oh, dear. It is a bit better than the other day, but I didn’t think to suggest shopping to anyone else. Should we take a break? Drink some water!” Serena peered at him in concern.

Just a casual purchase, then. Sylvando smiled, pleased that this wasn’t the sort of group to brood over what was or wasn’t appropriate attire for a lady.

Then he glanced up at the bright sun overhead, and back down at the pink tinge already covering her shoulders, and he drew a breath to warn about sunburn.

Movement caught his eye and he changed what he was going to say. “Incoming, stage left!”

He was out of position to block the cactus-shaped monster from reaching Serena. She tried to ward it off with a sandaled foot, then levered it away from herself with the spear. She hummed mild disapproval, like a craftswoman making a small but recoverable mistake, though Sylvando caught a noticeable flash of red on the sand below her. He pursed his lips as he arrived at her side, sword in hand, and he did his best to improvise his way into the fight and attract the creature’s attention without getting in her way.

It wasn’t a long battle, nor difficult after the element of surprise wore off. Sylvando glanced at the wound on Serena’s foot and opened his mouth to offer his slow-acting healing magic, a reflex after traveling with other caravans, but he’d forgotten Serena’s own magic. She waved a hand and healed herself without comment, then calmly scrubbed her foot through the sand to clean off the remaining blood.

The sunburn disappeared from her shoulders, too. Sylvando closed his mouth and cast aside the notion of commenting on her garb.

It went the same in the swamp, too. The group started swatting at the biting insects that began to follow them. Except for Serena. Serena got the worst of it with her bare arms and midriff, but she simply ignored the tiny pests, except for a lazy wave of an arm once in a while that seemed designed to shoo them away from her face without doing harm. But every time he started to think she must be getting uncomfortable from the accumulation of little red marks, they got into another skirmish, and she took an additional scrape or scratch, and she healed herself, and then her skin was good as new again. Sylvando smiled and resolved to stop plotting to mother her.

He’d forgotten all about her outfit by the time they reached Gondolia and he split off from the party to look for a snack together with the girls. Happy for the chance to watch new friends play tourist, he let them take the lead as they headed to the market, and he only let himself narrate features that seemed to catch their eye.

“Look, that’ll be where they’re holding this Signor Universo competition. Best place in town for a performance.”

“Sounds a bit silly to me. Bunch of men trying to prove who has the bigger muscles,” Veronica muttered.

Sylvando caught a couple of nearby women scowling in their direction, and even though he hadn’t thought Veronica’s voice was so loud as to reach them from such a distance, perhaps it was a trick of the acoustics. He hurried to save face. “Honey, it’s not about that. Or at least not entirely. It’s clearly also very much about putting on a good show for the enjoyment of people watching.”

“Hm.”

He glanced at Serena to check if she had anything to add, and he caught her looking away, distracted. More than distracted. Unhappy?

He followed her gaze and found a pair of men staring in their direction. At Veronica? No, their eyes were aimed at Veronica’s height, but the diminutive mage was walking on the other side of him now. They were looking more towards—

_Oh._

Sylvando had spent all his time worrying about the environmental implications of the outfit when he should have thought to warn Serena about fashion in the city. Gondolia was a locale with a flair for modesty, and Serena in her dancer’s costume would be considered more than a little bit scandalous. He had no problem allowing a confident woman to play with cultural norms, but...

He looked back at Serena, and his eyes skipped downward to take in her hunched posture, the arms crossed under her chest, and then back up to meet her eyes, where he found her regarding him with a hurt expression. He mentally called himself a fool, because of course he looked like he was looking, coolly appraising her in the same impersonal way as the strangers on the street were doing. He gave her his best effort at a reassuring smile, then crossed in front of her to approach the men.

“Hello, honey!” he addressed the closer one, and he stepped a little bit too close for politeness, just to be sure he had their attention. “We’re looking for the finest pastries in all Gondolia. Could you possibly point us in the right direction?”

The men blinked at him, and the closer one shifted very slightly in a bid to reclaim a little personal space without being too obvious about it. “Eh, of course. You want the stall with the pink and white awning down there.”

“Thank you so much, darling! I’ll think of you when I sit down to eat.” He flashed his most winning smile and wiggled his fingers in a wave as he stepped away, confident that the pair would spend the following minutes preoccupied with the exchange.

He kept an eye out as they walked down the center of the market strip. He spotted a pottery merchant’s gaze drifting, and he veered into the man’s line of sight. The merchant started to lean sideways to look around him, so Sylvando glanced at the tabletop, identified the most intricately painted and fragile looking bowl, and lifted it up with a loud exclamation. “My word, I’ve never seen such a lovely piece. Is it valuable?” He spun it carelessly in his hands, confident after so many years of juggling and sleight-of-hand that he wouldn’t drop it, but he didn’t recognize the merchant as one of his regulars from the times he’d performed here, so he knew the man had no reason to believe the same.

“Y-yes, sir. It’s quite valuable.”

“Hmm. Well, who knows. Maybe I’ll be back with a bigger purse. I haven’t got more than a few thousand on me.”

He set the bowl down and turned away before the merchant had a chance to work out whether to try for the implied good sale now or wait for an opportunity for a truly exorbitant overcharge. Sylvando snuck a glance at Serena as they continued, noting with pride that she’d started to lose the distressed posture and was watching him with some degree of curiosity.

The next offender was a seller of scarves, who watched them coming with a little smirk until Sylvando put himself in the way. “Oh, how beautiful!” He picked up an excessive double-handful off of the rack, threaded the ends between different fingers, let them hang freely, and whirled in a circle so the bits of light, gauzy cloth streamed through the air, tracing his movements.

Then, just because of the smirk, he dropped one. “Whoops!” He let go of the other three in the same hand in order to catch the first as it drifted downwards. “Oh, dear!” Then the four from the other hand went up in the air so he could scoop up the falling set as they descended. “Here we go.” He caught all but one of the last set over his wrists, and he allowed the final scarf to nearly touch the ground before he kicked up a leg to catch it over his shin. He wobbled a little on one foot, greatly exaggerating his difficulty in keeping his balance, as he brought all the scarves together into one bundle.

The merchant goggled at him while he piled the scarves on the table. “I’m so sorry, honey. I think I’d better let you take care of these. They’re just so gorgeous that I couldn’t help myself.”

As he turned down the street, he made eye contact with a woman he recognized, an older housewife who never missed a show when he set up in town, watching him with a hand over her smile. He winked at her, sure that she was going to stop and buy a scarf of her own after that. He’d known his display would likely serve as advertisement as much as punishment, but that was all right. Either way, it served the purpose of taking unwanted attention off of his companion.

The bystander even openly smiled at Serena as she walked by, likely taking her to be a new collaborator of Sylvando’s. He silently blessed the woman and made a mental note to put on an act featuring flowers next time he came here to properly perform, since he knew it was one of her favorite themes.

He eyed the next stretch of the market, a busy section with stalls densely packed on both sides. He debated his options for a brief moment, then flicked a wrist to drop a small handful of coins into his palm from their hiding place up his sleeve. He announced in a voice meant to carry, “Goodness! There are so many lovely things for sale, these just burned a hole right through my pocket!” Then he proceeded to juggle the coins in one hand as he led the way down the street, allowing the flash of gold and the question of whether he might drop something to pull all eyes to him. For good measure, he allowed one of the coins to fall at the feet of a flatteringly fascinated child they passed along the way.

They made it to the pastry stall, and Sylvando planted his feet in a spot that left Serena to stand in front of a tall layer cake so that only her face would be visible to the seller. “Here we are at last! What catches your eye, my doves?”

Serena looked at him for a moment with a smile, and he was certain that she’d caught on to what he was doing. He gave her a wink.

“Do you have anything for a proper meal?” Veronica piped up from his other side. “Much as I’m looking forward to the dessert, I expect we ought to look for a token vegetable, too.”

“Spoilsport,” murmured Serena while turning to look at the display, but then she added, “Are those hand pies?”

“Yes, vegetable and cheese! You won’t regret starting your meal with them,” enthused the merchant.

Caught up in the spirit of attending to his companions’ happiness and well-being, Sylvando waited until they’d made their selections and then insisted on paying for everything. That was a bad habit that Dave would probably scold him over later, but once he started looking for ways to boost someone’s mood, he found it hard to stop. The sisters protested only a little, and he suspected he’d cemented the impression of actually being excessively wealthy during his jaunt down the street, if not earlier when he’d announced that he had his own ship. That wasn’t really accurate, but it made it easy to get away with the immediate gesture, so he let the assumption stand.

He handed one of the sizeable resulting bundles to Serena so she’d have something to carry in front of herself during the last stretch of their walk, and he carried the other himself while he led the two down and around to the waterfront pathways. 

He spotted an alcove with a scattering of unattended crates, and he waved the sisters in. This time he positioned himself in Veronica’s way to ensure that Serena went in first, so that the girls ended up sitting side by side with their backs to the wall. He sat down across from them, letting his shoulder stick out just a little into the walkway. That way, both of his companions would have a pleasant view of the water, but Serena would be as shielded as possible from the eyes of the occasional passer-by.

He opened up his bundle and passed one of the hand pies to Veronica.

“Thank you, Sylvando,” Veronica said. She held his eyes a moment longer than mere politeness dictated, then pointedly glanced at Serena out of the corner of her eye for an instant before meeting his gaze again, and he realized he wasn’t the only one who’d noticed Serena’s discomfort.

“It was my pleasure, darling,” he answered with complete honesty.

They gave over the afternoon to delicious food and enjoyable conversation. Sylvando watched both of them smiling, relaxed, and happy, and he basked in the satisfaction of a job well done.


End file.
